Angel of Mercy Read Online Free PDF Page B

walked through the kitchen and did just what she suggested, however: he settled on the sofa.
    For a moment he just looked around. How wonderful it was simply to come home, he thought, and he looked around his home as if it were the first time he had entered it. It took a brush with the Grim Reaper to get him to appreciate what he had. While most of his contemporaries in urban areas like Los Angeles lived in small homes or apartments, he had a thirty-two-hundred-square-foot home with a marble-floored entryway.
    Unlike the inner-city apartments where some of his older acquaintances resided, he had an airy, bright, and cheerful house with new-looking beige Berber rugs, cream-painted walls, and large windows and skylights.
    The bathrooms had brass fittings and plenty of mirrors. There was a tear-drop chandelier in the dining room and the living room had a bay window that looked out toward the San Jacinto Mountains, giving them a rather breathtaking view. Just outside the kitchen, they had a small patio which they could use as a breakfast nook. Why was it he had never stopped to appreciate all this before? he wondered. Jennie appeared in the doorway.
    “I’ll make some soup and a toasted-cheese sandwich, okay?”
    “Sounds good.” He smiled. “It’s good to be home.”
    She returned the smile and went back to the kitchen.
    He waited a moment and then slowly, quietly, he reached over and lifted the telephone receiver out of its cradle. As gently as possible, he punched out the station’s number.
    “Billy,” he said when the dispatcher responded. “It’s Frankie. Give me Rosina.”
    “Frankie! How you doin’ ?”
    “Good.”
    “What?”
    “Good.”
    “Why are you speaking so softly?”
    “Just give me Rosina, Billy.”
    “Right.”
    The extension was rung.
    “Detective Flores,” she responded.
    “Who says you’re a detective?”
    “Frankie! You’re home?”
    “Just arrived.”
    “How are you?”
    “Great. What’s been happening?”
    “Not a helluva lot,” she began and then said, “well, actually a helluva lot.”
    Frankie smothered a laugh.
    “What?”
    “Seems this schoolteacher was porking the mother of one of his students… a divorcee, whose estranged husband remained possessive.”
    “Killed her?”
    “Killed the teacher. It will be in tomorrow’s Sun.”
    “At least it’s open-and-shut. What else?”
    “Had a suicide to investigate. Elderly gent who just lost his wife and seems to have offed himself by overdosing on her insulin.”
    “Whatever happened to gas ovens?”
    “Theirs was electric. It’s a sad one. He was very determined.”
    “What d’ya mean?”
    “Autopsy revealed he took a fistful of Dilantin, too.”
    “Don’t be a big shot, Flores. What’s Dilantin?”
    “Thought you former big-city detectives would know.” She laughed.
    “It’s used as an anticonvulsant and sleeping aid, but one of its possible side effects, especially in large doses, is insulin shock.”
    “I thought you said he overdosed on insulin?”
    “I did.”
    “So he took these pills besides?”
    “I told you he was determined.”
    Frankie was silent a moment.
    “Where’d he get the pills? Were they his?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Couldn’t be his wife’s if she had diabetes then and was taking insulin, right?” Rosina was silent.
    “You didn’t go through the medicine cabinet, review their drug history, contact their doctor?”
    “I checked. There wasn’t any Dilantin in their medicine cabinet.”
    “Not even an empty bottle?”
    “No.”
    “So?”
    “Nolan says it’s open-and-shut and he doesn’t want me spending any more time on it. I have to go stake out this pump station on Alejo that might be a drugstore instead. The owner of the Seven-Eleven across the way tipped us.”
    “You’re satisfied closing this suicide investigation, Flores?”
    “Hey, the guy was married for nearly forty years to the same woman.
    They live alone, one married daughter in Ohio. His wife kicks